In recent years the focus of consumer-oriented software developers has shifted away from personal computers towards software applications (“apps”) for smartphone and tablet computers. While there are other, less-popular operating systems for smartphone and tablet computers, the most prevalent operating system for such devices is the Android™ operating system produced by Google Inc. of Mountain View Calif.
Android and certain other operating systems allow third party developers to develop apps that run on top of them. Moreover these operating systems and associated app stores allow device users to quickly search for, download, and install apps. The ease with which apps can be developed and put on sale through app stores has created an incentive for large numbers of software developers to create a myriad of apps. The number of apps is so large and growing at such a rate that it would be a daunting task to review the ergonomics of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) of each app.
This creates opportunities for assisting in checking the ergonomics of the GUIs of a large number of apps (e.g., >100,000) deployed on a large number of devices (e.g., >100,000,000) and thereby aiding in the improvement of the GUIs. Furthermore such a system might alert app store managers and/or app developers to apps that may have a problematic GUI.
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